The List: A Novel

Beth (the head of human resources) and CuRated know that Michael is on The List. Before hiring Michael, they did a DBS (disclosure and barring service) check. Michael has no criminal record, and no one has a restraining order against him. Yet despite these details, CuRated is in a fraught position. They do not want to fire their sole Black employee, nor do they want to retain an alleged abuser. CuRated compromises by putting Michael on “temporary leave.” Beth offers “support” and acknowledges that “nutters” tend to populate the internet.

At home, Michael messages his three friends from university—Amani, Seun, and Kwabz—with whom he previously created the podcast Caught Slippin. Now, Amani does not think that Michael belongs on the list, and he claims that the person timed their accusation against the artist Papi Danks to coincide with his new mixtape. Kwabz is Michael’s best friend. He messages Michael separately, wanting to know if there is any truth to the allegations. Michael says that there isn’t, and they both agree that Jackie must be the one who put Michael on The List. Despite Kwabz’s support, Michael is severely upset, and he wishes that he didn’t exist.

Ola and Michael had been together informally for around six months when Jackie and Michael first started messaging each other. Michael thought that Ola liked him for who he could be, but he felt as though Jackie liked him for who he actually was. She sent him sexual pictures, and he invited her to a live taping of Caught Slippin. Afterward, they had sex. Ola found out about the affair, and Jackie and Michael stopped seeing each other, but then they started messaging again. Jackie planned to leave her boyfriend for Michael, and she arrived uninvited to another Caught Slippin show. Michel avoided her, and Jackie sent him a WhatsApp message that was the length of an “essay” and issued violent threats. 

Luke does not find any “incriminating evidence” on Michael, but he discovers that Rhian Mcintosh, the deputy political editor at The Observer, created The List. Ola meets with Rhian at a women-only club called Venus, the tagline of which reads, “Venus: A home for the home girls” (147). Ola is the only “non-white woman” there, and Rhian realizes that Ola wants to talk about Michael and is not interested in interviewing her for Womxxxn. Rhian cannot tell Ola who put Michael on The List. Rhian mentions Ola’s “MCsToo” article, which makes Ola feel like a hypocrite.

In 2017, Rhian was in Washington, DC, to cover the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency when she began receiving lists of predatory men. At the time, Rhian was in an abusive relationship with a journalist. When another woman created a post in a Facebook group displaying bruises inflicted by the journalist, Rhian made a spreadsheet for women in England. She sent it to nine people, and they sent it to others, after which the spread of The List became “harder to control.”

Now, Rhian acknowledges Ola’s pain, but she does not think that Ola’s concerns take priority over the pain of survivors. Rhian believes that the majority of the allegations on The List are true. Ola ridicules the “court of Twitter” and reminds Rhian that women do not always tell the truth, using Emmett Till and the Scottsboro Boys as examples. After Ola leaves, she receives a text from a blocked number—presumably, Rhian’s—telling her that the person who submitted Michael’s name to The List had the username @mirrorissa92.

Michael ignores his mother’s calls and texts and focuses instead on All Tea, No Crumpet—England’s largest forum for Black gossip. The commenters discuss Michael and note when influencers and minor celebrities follow and unfollow him.

Wearing an unwashed shirt and looking tired, Michael visits Ola at her flat. She tells him that Womxxxn will not publish an article on The List in the immediate future. Michael hopes that they never publish it, and Ola wonders if Michael means that Womxxxn should not warn women about predators. Ola and Michael confess that they do not know how to talk about The List, and Michael remembers that he and his friends often made fun of feminist discourse in the past. Michael wonders what will happen next, but Ola doesn’t know. They depart, and Michael looks at All Tea and connects @mirrorissa92 to the comedy-drama Insecure and its creator and star, Issa Rae. Michael gives one of @mirrorissa92’s comments a thumbs down before sending them a message stating, “I know who you are” (179).

Guilty over her continuing connection to Michael, Ola “corners” Kiran and asks to go with her when she volunteers at a shelter for women. Ola also donates to a plethora of GoFundMe causes for women. At a panel moderated by Kiran, Kiran calls Ola a “feminist fembot.” Meanwhile, Nour El Masri, a university student and aspiring journalist, tells Ola and Kiran that the sports journalist Matthew Plummer kissed her and sent her a picture of his penis when she was a minor. Nour thinks that Plummer might have preyed on fewer girls if she had spoken up. Kiran tells Nour not to blame herself, and Ola blames herself for perpetuating the sexual abuse problems within the media and entertainment industries.

Michael picks up his grandmother from the airport, and they go to the yellow-brick house of his parents. Michael’s father watches CNN and is not communicative. When Michael was growing up, his father worked during the day and stayed out at night. Now, Michael doesn’t want to be like his father; he doesn’t want to make his future wife feel alone. Michael’s mother chides him for not replying to his texts and calls. She thinks that Michael looks unwell and wonders if everything is fine between Michael and Ola. Michael reassures her but says that they’re both busy with work. Michael’s mother thinks that Ola’s work consists of writing about sex toys. She wishes that Ola and Michael would give her grandchildren.

Michael recalls the “experimental” sex that he and Ola sometimes had and reflects that people could now use it as evidence of his problematic character. He also reflects on Jackie. Whether Michael and Ola were in an “official” relationship at the time is arguable, but Michael lied to Ola when he claimed that he wasn’t romantically involved with anyone else. After Michael ended his relationship with Jackie, she bombarded Michael and Kwabz with messages, and she sent threats and pictures. Michael promised never to contact Jackie again, but one year later, after he lost his job, he and Jackie started sending each other sexual messages and images, even though they didn’t have physical sex.